Kolkata Style Chicken Biryani — Kolkata (City Of Joy)

Tried my hand on this typical kolkata style biryani — which you will not get anywhere else in India other than Kolkata — ( The City Of Joy )— which I love the most — but since I live in Pune — the saddest part is that -it is hard to get it here —

And finally I had to learn it to get a taste of this awesome biryani at the comfort of my home —

This is a dry type of biryani — with less spices than the Hyderabad biryani —

Main Ingredients:

2 cups of Basmati Rice

500 gm of chicken ( cut in medium-sized pieces)

1/2 cup curd

3 tbsp of Ginger garlic and green chilli paste

5 big sliced onions

6 to 7 tbsp of ghee

4 big sized par boiled potato cut in medium-sized cube

Vegetable oil for cooking

1 tsp of turmeric powder

1/2 tsp of kewra water

2 drops Mitha Attar

Biryani Spice ( Most Imp)

1 tsp of shahi jeera

1 tsp of coriander seeds

1 tsp of black pepper

1 tsp of white pepper

2 to 3 black cardamom

5 to 6 green cardamom

1 whole nutmeg (jaiphal)

2 whole maces ( javetri flower)

5 to 6 cloves

1 to 2 cinnamon sticks

Dry roast all the whole spices on hot tawa , till they release their aroma , take off the heat let it cool for sometime and then grind them together to get a powdered spice

Method :

Soak rice for half an hour then to prepare the rice , boil required amount of water and drop some 4 to 5 cardamom , cloves and 1 cinnamon stick and then add in the rice to the boiling water , cook till it is three fourth done , drain it and spread it on a plate.

Soak some saffron in warm milk and add in the biryani spice , some kewra water and mitha attar, — keep it aside

Now heat oil in a kadai , add in the marinated chicken pieces , add in some salt , and turmeric powder and cook on low flame , till the chicken is done and oil oozes out.

Assembling :

Now that all the elements of biryani are ready we need to do the assembling.

Take a heavy bottomed vessel. on the bottom place 2 to 3 potatoes and some chicken then on top of it put a layer of rice , sprinkle some saffron and spice mix, some salt , some ghee and put in some of the caramelised onions.

Then repeat the same step with first the potaotoes and chicken and then topping it off with rice layer .

Last layer should be that of rice and top of it add again some onion , biryani spice mix , saffron milk and lastly a dollop of ghee.

Cover the pan with an aluminium foil and then cover it with a lid and put it on stove on low flame for 15 to 20 minutes .